Before Borussia Dortmund Giovanni Reyna almost signed elsewhere...Where was it?

Giovanni Reyna has just came of his breakout season at Borussia Dortmund and is enjoying the full Lucien Favre's confidence to even earn a spot in the starting line up. That is a lot to say considering the constellation of stars that compose BVB's squad. Back in 2017, when Reyna signed with Dortmund, he was just about to land elsewhere. 

Gio Reyna was almost a FC Köln player. In fact, the American youngster had everything read to be transferred from New York City FC to the Cologne's team. In total, Köln was ready to pay more that two million euros for the back-then 14 year-old offensive midfielder. But executive changes were made in the German team, and the operation was called off.

It happens that FC Köln sport director Jörg Jakobs was all-in on signing Reyna. He convinced president Werner Spinner. In fact, president Spinner took a flew to New York to convince himself Reyna's parents. Gio's mother, former USA player Daniella Egan, was just about to take a job at FC Köln Women. But everything fell down.

Just before completing Reyna's sign, FC Köln went through structural and personnel changes, and Frank Aehling replaced Jakobs. Also, Armin Veh took a place as Köln's CEO. Spinner tried to convince Veh to sign Reyna, but the executive changes delay Go's operation. When the team got back to Reyna's parents, they discovered Gio had already signed contract with Borussia Dortmund.